I don't know about that..   I think Pescado could easily convince Schrodinger's cat to cough up a hairball on command, whether it was dead or alive at the time.

I have to agree with you here Motoki.  When I fire up a new Sims 3 game, I play it to play one family only, from start to finish (whatever that eventual end is).  I don't jump around and touch other houses, unless I'm curious what's going on in there or want a peek at a prospective mate for a sim.

Sure you can switch around to your heart's content, but many of us play one family as our only, and can't be bothered with managing the entire neighborhood, nor do we want to.

AwesomeMod's Story Mode is purely in development and experimental status right now - hopefully most of the AM users out there realize that.  I'd call it somewhere between an Alpha and a Beta, with the possibility of screwing up a neighborhood in one fashion or another.  That doesn't mean we shouldn't use it however, just make a lot of saves and realize if it is on, you're a tester.

I believe Pescado has Story Mode right up on the top of his list, now that we have our grubby hands on it.

P.S.  Lemmy and Binky just dropped Indy Stone, so their user base *is* going to take a dive in the short term.

Some interesting news from Lemmy & Binky regarding Indy Stone and the future of the mod.  Apparently they are handing in the towel, and offering up the mod for someone else to take over.  This was an excerpt from the mod's listing over at MTS:


While I only used the story portion of the mod for a short time along with AM's core, I know they had a good following.  Certainly makes AwesomeMod's Story Mode version stand out a bit more, now that it is available.  It will be very interesting to see if someone else in the community has the cohones and skill to take up where they left off.

It is a good question, and a valid one.  Take the Bunch family for example:  can two working parents keep up with the weekly total tax for a family of 6, in a decent sized house?  Especially if their work performance is scaled to a longer game via config options.  I'm dubious, and think that kids (Teens down to babies) should have a slightly smaller affect on taxes, to offset the fact they generally don't work, and don't use quite as many resources as parents do.

This thread has my vote for:

1) Sticky-ness.
2) Adding a mod onto the forum such that you can't see any other threads until you read this one.
3) Only being able to read this one for the first ten minutes you've registered with the forum and visit.
4) An auto-emailer addition that blasts this out to new registrants once they've done so on MATY.

If I can think of any other reasons or methods to force someone to read it several times more, I'll add them in later...

If you intend on using the new Token-Ring rabbit-hole queuing system, then the CSMA-CD package does little for you.  I originally thought it would, but based on all the testing I've done with the Routing XML file (which amounts to over 30 hours now), it has little impact on standard routing.  There are other tweaks to the same XML file that can give greater results to the same routing algorithm that sims use.

Don't think it was anything Pes added, unless Karma counts.   

Just a note that the work I've been doing regarding sim routing/pathing has taken a turn (not a u-turn).    I'll be sending Pes all my findings so far, since he's doing work on his own to resolve sim pathing issues and rabbit holes.  Essentially I won't be producing a separate mod with XML tweaks unless I believe that the AM values can benefit from new ones.

But of course, it annoys me to see such idotic AI in this day and age when computers are so close to mimicking human intelligence.  To have such poorly planned routing algorithms is just a sin.

I believe I have the tweaks in place, the only thing stopping the code from being circulated is an infrequent and minor issue, but one that hurts in a big way when it happens.  Occasionally (once in 10-20 rabbit hole tests), I'll see a sim step onto the rabbit hole "pad" to enter, and then spontaneously forget where they were going.  They essentially lose their train of thought, and stand there clueless for however long they want, blocking other sims from getting in.  That's why I was keenly interested in this forcing code, though I think it is part of Supreme Commander and therefore won't work for sims not being controlled by it.

I think placing a sim in a Low Resolution mode while they are on their way to work/school can accomplish the same goal, since I've seen them waltz right into the school when I was in town map mode, and they had no trouble pathing past each other.  Not sure if that's something that will break animations and suspend belief or not, though I suspect it may.

As an interesting sidenote: the tweaks I've made to the routing behavior move much faster than the standard push-n-shove code that EA gave us.  During my routing tests at the School, that 13 students make it in around 9:45 or 10:00 with vanilla routing, but usually make it in between 9:00 and 9:15 with the new changes.  There is none of the typical shoving and pushing, and milling about like you'd normally see.

Provided I can fix the seeming "alzheimers" problem with some sims on their way into the rabbit hole, I'll gladly distribute what I've come up with.

In my current game (as of 3 days ago), one of my Bookworm sims frequently (several times a day) visited the bookshelf with the Read Something want, stood there for 30+ minutes, and finally walked away.  When I turned off the Anti-Raymundo feature in AM, she started choosing books and reading them.

That tells me that 1) She'd already read all of it, and 2) That the Read Something still pops up even if it's all been read already.

I've been working with the routing algorithm and rabbit hole issues for the last 3-4 days, and may have found a solution (when combined with the latest force-to-work/school code).  The problem comes with the constant pushing and avoidance code that tries to stuff X sims into 1 rabbit hole at a time.

The last test I did (*without* the force code) had a 95% success rate in getting 13 sims into 1 hole over 20 tests, when all were delivered to the lot within the same ten sim-minutes (ten RL seconds).  I plan on doing some tests with the new force code (after I read up on it to see precisely what it does), and hopefully it will allow us to get a 100% success rate without the CPU-bashing, and within an acceptable time limit.

If you can start the game and load a savegame, there should be no need to clean a save of any old mod or AM content.  I am fairly sure the newer AM can handle old AM content fine.  If there was a problem with the latest patch install and you had to clean a savegame of all mods and core mods, you'd have to un-patch The Sims, remove all mods/core mods, load the savegame (or try to), and then re-save.  That's what cleaning is.  Sometimes it works on modded savegames, sometimes not.

Did you run the TS3 Launcher and check to see if all of your downloads are installed?  That's where both the purchased and free (shared) stuff is.  The folder for it is in \My Documents\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Downloads\.  If you made a backup folder of that before uninstalling/reinstalling, you can simply move the contents back in, restart the Launcher, and re-install all of it.

Just an FYI for those of you trying to use older versions of AM:

If you aren't willing to patch your Sims 3 copy, and instead try to use it unpatched with an older version of AwesomeMod, don't bother posting with any problems in the meantime on these forums.  Nothing Pescado hates more than bug reports and requests for help from people using outdated versions.  The latest copy of AM seems to work fine with all my savegames, both AM enabled ones and not.  Perhaps you should clean your old savegame of any AM elements first (with the new patch installed), and then install the new AM.

Or, you could try and help Pes find out where problems in AM are coming from (which is the whole point of him time-bombing copies).  AM is actually still a beta, and as such we're unofficially expected to help when we find problems by reporting bugs.

I simply cut the values in half (from defaults) which is quite realistic enough, and alleviates most of the traffic jams I see in-game.

That's awesome news Pes (pun intended).  Very worth the time-to-sidetrack.

*two thumbs up*   

• Main Sims 3 directory:  C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Game\Bin   (if you use XP, remove the (x86) part)
  
• Sims 3 Packages directory:  C:\Program Files (x86)\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3\Mods\Packages
• Sims 3 data directory:  (My Documents Folder)\Electronic Arts\The Sims 3

Cache files are any file in the data directory with "cache" in the name.  Same goes for packages directory (if you find any files with "cache" in the name, either delete them or move them elsewhere).  Packages directory holds all the mods you've installed for Sims 3.

1) Delete all copies of awesome mod on your computer.  Those you downloaded, those in the packages directory..  all of em.
2) Delete all copies of your awesome config file (assuming you use one).  If you don't use one - why the hell not?!
2) Re-download and re-extract the AwesomeMod package.  Verify when you copy to Packages directory you don't get an overwrite message.
3) Clear your cache files (all four of them).
4) Go back into your Packages directory, make sure none of the cache files copied themselves into there (I've seen it happen quite a bit on my machine).  If they are there, delete them.
5) If you want for good measure, delete the contents of the WorldCaches directory (if there are any).
6) Look at the contents of your Packages directory in detail - verify you don't have another copy of the awesome mod with a variation on the name.
7) Use the online AwesomeMod tool to re-do your config.
8) Copy the new config file to your Packages directory.  Verify when you copy that you don't get an overwrite message.

If all else fails after this, shut down your computer, go get lunch (or a quickie - I prefer the quickie), and come back later to try again.

Which is fine and dandy - just be sure to fix the fact that it currently leaves the mailbox flag up when it pays bills. 

Don't the police come and toss you in jail for "loitering on school grounds", with AM installed now?

It has been mentioned elsewhere, but I'll be nice and let you in on it - if you have Stasis on, none of your sims will age at all.  To have only the current household age, I believe you need TS2 style aging on, and Stasis off.

I just picked one up for a client (a non-gamer), which is made by Belkin.  It ran around $25-30 if I recall, was powered by a USB cable (so you could roam with it in your lap), and had a fairly large fan.  It of course wasn't a really good one, like a gamer might need when they push their system.  I don't personally game on laptops, so it's hard for me to recommend one.  But *any* laptop base with cooling is an improvement over nothing.

Get a high quality (i.e. expensive) laptop cradle/base with some decent fans on it to cool those laptops!  They were never meant for extended gaming in the first place, and sitting on a flat desk or in a warm room is just asking for trouble. 

Yep, this.  Exact;y the same trick I used on the current piece of property I'm building.  Has a basement level for the manor that has both a pond and a sunken garden.  Sinking the garden a bit was necessary so that trees planted there didn't show up through the floor above.